The serial killer known as the “Hollywood Ripper” and the “Boy Next Door Killer” was already on death row for two murders in Southern California, in 2001 and 2005, and was extradited to Illinois for the 1993 killing of an 18-year-old boy.
Michael Gargiulo, 48, is charged with the murder of 18-year-old Tricia Pacasio, whose body was found by her father outside her Fairview, Illinois, home after a night out with friends in August 1993. To FOX 32.
“Michael Gargiulo was a friend and classmate of the victim's brother. The defendant lived one block from the Pacaccio home,” Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Ethan Holland told reporters Friday at the Skokie, Illinois, courthouse.
Gargiulo was a suspect in the original investigation, but DNA testing did not link him to the crimes until he traveled to California and committed the 2001 murders of Ashley Ellerin, then 22, and the 2005 murders of Maria Bruno, then 32, a mother of four whose breasts were amputated during the murder.
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Michael Gargiulo is charged with the 1993 murder of 18-year-old Tricia Pacasio outside her home. (FOX32)
Actor Ashton Kutcher testified at Gargiulo's trial, accused of murdering Ellerin, that he was supposed to pick her up for a date that night in 2001, but by the time he arrived at her home she had been murdered. She had been stabbed 47 times.
Gargiulo is also accused of plotting to kill another woman in the Los Angeles area in 2008.
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A sketch of Gargiulo in court on Friday. (FOX32)
After those murders, more witnesses came forward, Holland said. “These witnesses testified that Michael Gargiulo admitted to murdering young girls in Chicago in the late 1990s.”
Holland said an individual referred to as “Witness A” “accompanied Mr. Gargiulo and another individual and disposed of the knife that Mr. Gargiulo had. Mr. Gargiulo admitted to Witness A that he was afraid the police were coming after him.”
Pacacio was found dead outside her home in August 1993. (FOX32)
Additionally, another person who came forward, known as “Witness C,” said Gargiulo told him he “buried the motherfucker.” When pressed by “Witness C” to tell the truth, Gargiulo said he was only joking and that he actually “left the motherfucker on the stairs to die.”
Gargiulo was indicted in 2011 for Pacacho's murder but was not extradited to face sentencing in California.
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Gargiulo is being held without bail and is scheduled to appear in court again on Sept. 20.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Cook County State's Attorney's Office.
